VII- The Chariot
by the-fabulous-Jai
Summary: The Chariot, seventh card in the Major Arcana: triumph, changes in life, changes of heart, physical movement, emotional growth, evolution of values. Oh, and murder. (Keep on walking.) First posted on AO3.


**_(Ace of Wands_**

_He is dynamic, catching Tyki's eye on the train long before they meet._

**_VII of Pentacles_**

_He has lost money gambling in years before, of course. Not as much as the twins, but enough to know when someone's counting cards. And Cheating Boy A is a master.)_

**X of Wands**

Time passes, as it so often does.

**0\. The Fool?**

Cycles begin anew again.

And then there's Crown Clown. Innocence. The fact that underneath the bloodshed and horror, Walker really is innocent; a scared boy who never got to be a child, trained through experience and blood. Tyki wonders what Allen would've been like without all the violence, can't decide if he would have liked him changed or not. Innocent in every possible version Tyki can imagine.

**The Hierophant**

It makes the idea of him as a Noah all the more terrifying. It makes the thought of The Fourteenth even more appalling than it is, knowing what Nea's done.

**V of Swords**

The boy's hatred had been so clear, carved in a scowl on his face in every battle and dissipating when he looked at his real friends.

**VI of Swords**

Tyki doesn't want to know what finally pushed him over the edge, what caused Allen Walker to leave the relative safety of the Black order.

**VII of Swords**

It feels like Tyki's juggling, balancing a million different thoughts and worries. His friends move to another mine, and the kid gets sicker, and he has to bow and scrape before the Earl without saying what he thinks and something's going to drop soon.

**Temperance**

Road knows, of course. Road knows everything, would even if she were human. She admonishes him, says smoke less and eat more like it'll help, and reminds him that his light and dark side will not always be able to coexist.

And he knows that. He always has.

**_(The Moon_**

_Allen Walker does not dream in color. This is something Road had found interesting, before; the only people she's met that don't dream in color are Noah or otherwise very, very old._

_She herself dreams in pink and purple, swirling psychedelic over waking thoughts enough to overwhelm and further her need to watch others as they sleep. It works fine; her body remains just as rested in the morning, no matter what her mind's gotten up to._

_When Allen joins them officially, she slips unnoticed into his dreams to find them no less violent than before. She knows he and Nea are separate, will likely remain so forevermore. She knows they talk now; one in the other's head, spreading ideas that meld into one. She does not know if it will work.)_

**The Tower**

Tyki will reach a tipping point soon.

**The Sun**

Allen Walker draws him in like he's a stone on string, pulled in a fidgeting hand.

**VI of Pentacles**

Tyki is a rosary, turning every which way, and does not know if he should give or take. He is a beggar at the feet of Fate. (He's a migrant coal miner and an Apostle of God, and there is work to be done.)

**V of Cups**

When he leaves his civilian friends behind, it is under cover of night. There is a note in the place of his belongings, and he is so very lonely.

**VIII of Cups**

He is lonely, but he leaves anyway because he will not let them be a casualty of the Earl's madness.

("I'm glad you know which side you're on," says Road in between sips of sugar tea.)

**III of Cups**

Allen certainly knows which side he's on, or so it seems at first. The boy jokes about his old friends at the Order, quips about life on the streets, and makes clever remarks about growing up in the circus. He derides it all and thanks the Akuma servant for bringing out the meal with characteristic politeness.

**VIII of Swords**

And Tyki wants to scream at him, something between _don't you know what you've gotten into by joining us_ and _turn back now before you can't_. He doesn't say a word, of course, just looks at him when the boy doesn't pay attention.

**The High Priestess**

Lulu laughs at him sometimes, calls him a lovestruck fool, but what is friendship but the ability to laugh?

**The Hermit?**

He's hiding out in the garden.

**(The Lovers**

He's in the garden when Allen comes and kisses him, violently and madly and for no seeming reason at all.)

**The Hermit.**

Allen runs off. (Tyki hides in his room for the rest of the week.)

**Strength**

Time passes. Times change. Lulu is laughing, and Road is immune to cyanide. Allen knocks on the door, and Tyki replies. The rest is history, right?

**Hangman**

Not so. Instead of another kiss, (admittedly what Tyki might've hoped for if he'd had warning beforehand,) he instead hears: "I need your help."

**X of Swords**

The twins are next to join their scheme, rightly disillusioned. (They are the ones who truly believed, once.)

**IX of Swords**

Wisely is next, saying he'd rather live nowhere again than be a part of the upcoming genocide he can see in the Earl's mind. They don't come to him; he shows up at the little meeting the four hold.

**(Queen of Wands**

Lenalee Lee, the newly awakened Noah of Wrath, runs away from the Order for the third time in her life. Third time's the try, right?

Joining the Noah is not easy. Agreeing to betray their "leader" is.)

**King of Swords**

The Earl has lost what logic he was once capable of, that is clear to see.

**The Magician?**

Winter's first coat of snow covers the Kamelot mansion. Somewhere, the leader of the Bookmen is assassinated and devoured by Akuma. Allen gets the news in a letter; Lavi is no longer called Lavi. He is a Bookman, and therefore must be above emotion.

Attempts at being above emotion do not seem to go well for him, but Allen does not say so and wishes him the best of luck under a fake name in a code Lavi knows well.

**_(The Magician._**

_Nea whispers plans into their ears and the ideas have merit. You can't stage a coup properly without a hidden mastermind, right?)_

**V of Wands**

Allen talks to himself a lot. Reminders to keep on walking, whatever that means. Tyki hopes, someday, he'll be able to get the boy to take a rest.

**Queen of Pentacles**

Road is the last they seek out. She recruits the rest, contacts a witch somewhere in Europe who's good with banishing rituals. Road's a genius, and twelve to one is no fight.

**Death**

The Milennium Earl dies with: butterflies in his eyes, twin daggers in his back, poisoned tea in his veins. Well, far more weapons than just those line his body, but they number too many to list. At least one from each of the clan whose power he had turned against the world.

The final piece of the ritual involves a switchblade made of Darkness and steeped in Innocence, drawn across his neck.

**Judgement**

They rewrite history. Time. Allen's the destroyer, the linchpin, the judge and jury and executioner. A prophecy may or may not be fulfilled, but it doesn't really matter anymore because he's never truly gotten the chance to simply be and who is Allen to throw away a chance?

(During these years, he's always the one to kiss Tyki first. He gets the impression Tyki's afraid of his judgement, though he's long since shown his own hidden depths of cruelty and Tyki has done the same.)

**The Wheel**

The Order disbands, mostly. Exorcists all over the world wake to find their weapons inactive, crumbled to paper-ash under their marked places. It's chaos, and society at large has no idea.

(Allen goes to a folk witch he knew in his childhood. He comes back a month later, voice deepened and chest flat and gloriously happy. Sheril's the one to teach him to shave. Allen is twenty-five and Tyki, now thirty, stops calling him "boy" and starts a list of which nicknames make him laugh the most.)

The wheel of fate turns, and the party the group of former Noah throw to celebrate the year 1900 is truly magnificent. Several former Order members are invited, along with the new head of the Bookman Clan.

(The long-haired samurai starts a fight early in. He isn't over the war, or the other lifetime, or his lost love. He goes home with the youngest Bookman in history, already spoken of in awe for his work starting schools.)

**II of Cups**

Tyki kisses Allen this time. The world is new again and they fall in love.

**IX of Cups**

Tyki kisses Allen this time, a wish on the second-hand of Miranda Lotto's newly Innocence-free clock.

Life goes on; Tyki meets his old friends again, and they greet him in tears and questions and disbelief. Allen continues his metamorphasis. Somewhere on the other side of the world, Deak Lavi Bookman moves in with Kanda. Road begins to age. They celebrate her birthday in the spring now.

**The World**

They are human, and they are alive, and it is magnificent.


End file.
